Cleft Diagnosis - Pediatric Playbook - Boston Children's Hospital

Cleft Lip and Palate Program Overview

Contact the Cleft Lip and Palate Program

The Cleft Lip and Palate Program at Boston Children's Hospital cares for children and adolescents with cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Seeing more than 575 patients each year, the program is one of the largest and most experienced in the world when it comes to cleft lip and/or palate diagnoses, treatment and follow up care.

Proper cleft lip and/or palate treatment often requires the skills of many specialists. Our multidisciplinary team includes plastic and oral maxillofacial surgeons, dentists, otolaryngologists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, social workers and clinical geneticists with the pediatric expertise needed to get your child on the road to recovery.

In addition to patient care, our team is involved in innovative scientific research to benefit children and adolescents born with cleft lip and/or cleft palate.

Expert care

Program basics

As one of the largest Cleft Lip and Palate programs of its kind, we provide a wide range of diagnostic, treatment and follow-up services for cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Services include:

Surgical cleft lip and/or palate repair

Dental and orthodontic treatment

Feeding guidance and nutritional support

Evaluation and management of hearing loss

Speech therapy

Psychosocial support and counseling

Our team includes:

Plastic surgeons

Oral and maxillofacial surgeons

Dentists

Nurses

Psychologists and social workers

Otolaryngologists

Speech-language pathologists

Audiologists

Clinical geneticists

This multidisciplinary team works together to address the individual needs of each patient and family in treating and managing cleft lip and/or palate.

Excellence in pediatric plastic and oral surgery

The Cleft Lip and Palate Program is part of Boston Children’s Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery—one of the largest and most active pediatric plastic surgery centers in the country. Each year, the department cares for more than 16,000 infants, children, adolescents and young adults and performs more than 2,300 surgical procedures. Our clinical specialties include:

Our department also co-directs a state-of-the-art, 2,500-square-foot research laboratory. We are currently examining facial growth patterns and surgical outcomes for children with cleft lip and/or palate and conducting a study of quality, safety, cost and comparative effectiveness of cleft treatments.

Other departmental research focuses include angiogenesis and tissue regeneration and cranioplasty and bone healing.

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The future of pediatrics will be forged by thinking differently, breaking paradigms and joining together in a shared vision of tackling the toughest challenges before us.”